BIG TUNA

There are two perfectly good reasons why I tend to heavily research a restaurant before I eat there. One, I don’t care to eat food that doesn’t taste good. Two, I don’t like paying for food that doesn’t taste very good, particularly if I have to pay a lot to do it.

On our recent family vacation to the Outer Banks, we mostly prepared our meals at the beach house. But one night was set aside for each of the respective families staying in the house to go their own way for dinner.

So I spent a few hours after a long morning beach stint digging around on food blogs and message boards and finding what reviews I could for kid-friendly OBX restaurants with reportedly good food (lofty expectations, I know).

Notice that I didn’t use terms like “great food,” “exquisite dining,” or “transcendent culinary delights.” Just a mostly satisfying meal, preferably one that has, as some component, fresh seafood.

And so it was that I found a January 2007 post on Chowhound – which I consider to be a reputable source of restaurant reviews from knowledgeable eaters (it served me very well on a business trip earlier this year to L.A.) – that offered some fairly hearty praise of a “family-friendly” restaurant in the Kill Devil Hills area of the Outer Banks. Another Chowhound post on OBX dining also spoke well of this same restaurant.

I found the original post to be particularly convincing because the writer described the food she had eaten and prepared during a recent week’s vacation in OBX, and came off as somebody who understood food (which, I realize, sounds way snobby, but I’m not trying to fool anybody here: I’m a food snob).

So I decided to accept this anonymous advice, and my wife agreed to play along.

Now, a bit of important background before I tread any further. First, when last in the OBX two years ago, we had an absolutely dreadful experience for our dining-out meal, one that came with a hefty price tag and two plates on which the entrees were, well, left fairly intact. That particular excursion was carried out with no previous research, although I recall that I selected the restaurant. I actually forget how I chose it, but believe it was listed in the phone book or an OBX “entertainment” guide in the house we stayed in that year. No matter. It was wretched.

This most recent dining experience started off well. The restaurant atmosphere was funky and laid back. The dining room ceiling, for example, consisted of grayish-blue waves with the bottoms of surf boards and jelly fish and other sea creatures jutting out. There was a kiddy drink menu with goofy names involving frogs and sharks. My son’s lemon-lime soda came with a little Great White shark filled with some sugary raspberry mixture to pour into it.

We got the kids the typical kiddy menu fare (something I hope to start moving away from soon), and ordered some fruity adult drinks and an appetizer sampler for ourselves: shrimp, crab, and scallops in various fried preparations, all of which had good flavor and were mostly well executed. Our entrees, both from the specials menu, both sounded interesting and potentially “good.”

Then they arrived, and what had been an enjoyable experience to that point came to an abrupt halt. I had my suspicions about my dish when ordering it – a five-spice coated tuna on top of noodles in a peanut-sauce – but figured it was one of the specials, which in my experience are typically among the best a restaurant has to offer. My wife got a mixed grill, which included some bacon-wrapped scallops and a pork chop.

I suppose I should have paid more strict attention to the menu’s description of my entrée or asked the waiter about it, because the tuna – something I was really looking forward to after a week of heavy dinners -- was not a thick piece of Ahi seared and sliced, but instead was two thin pieces, cooked almost all of the way through. It was dry and useless. The noodles topped with peanut sauce were serviceable, but could not compensate for the desecrated fish resting upon them.

The highlight of my wife’s dish was the side of creamy mashed potatoes. The bacon around the scallops was some of the most bland bacon I’ve ever had, and the pork chop, while moist, appeared to have little to no seasoning.

So, for the second straight time, we had a lousy, somewhat expensive meal out on our vacation. And, as important, I was still craving tuna.

So, on our way out of town, I stopped at a highly-regarded seafood market, picked up an excellent looking/smelling piece of tuna (and some beautiful sea scallops) and threw it in a cooler with some ice for the ride home.

On Saturday night – exhausted and mentally unfit for most tasks after the 9-hour plus trek back the day/night before – I looked through different recipes for seared tuna.

We settled on…

...coating the tuna in olive oil, the smoked salt that I’ve been hooked on, lots of freshly ground pepper, and the zest of one lime.

I seared it, sliced it into 9-10 long pieces with a big, rosy, raw center, and laid them on some greens (organic baby romaine that I got at our local big grocery chain that were probably the best greens I’ve had from a supermarket) topped with teardrop yellow tomatoes from our garden and diced avocado.

The dressing included grated fresh ginger, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, cilantro, as well as some garlic, honey, lime juice, ground mustard, into which I whisked a healthy dose of canola oil.

The camera was still in a suitcase somewhere, so you’ll have to trust me that it looked incredible and tasted even better. It definitely was the meal I had been craving a few days earlier. The exception being that it was far more than just “good.”

Scraping Up the Bits, Vacation Style

Thanks, Homer.

The Nation argues that the House-passed version of the Farm Bill is not as bad as many have said it is, and that there may be a way to lower subsidies for the “big 5” commodity crops via the Senate version of the bill...

Now that’s a sandwich…

And, finally, I know that Hung guy on Top Chef just put some cauliflower in his ice cream, but garlic in cookies, I don’t know…

Off to the beach for some R&R. Have a great week!

Summer Drinkin'

It’s been a hot summer. A scorcher. I mean, for Pete’s sake, we’re just getting into August and daytime temperatures in the 90s here in western Pennsylvania have become as common as NFL player arrests.

Now, I’m primarily a beer guy, and in the summer there is nothing I like better than a good wheat beer (the local Penn Hefeweizen being among the best) or a hoppy IPA (Stone IPA has been killer recently). At this exact very momentous instant, in fact, I'm drinking a limited summer release from Dogfish Head -- now officially among the top tier of U.S. breweries -- called Festina Peche. It's light, subtly tart, and, as its name implies, slightly peachy. Not as good as ApriHop, but enjoyable nonetheless.

But I digress... Again, although primarily a beer guy (and a wine guy secondarily, if we're limiting the conversation to alcoholic beverages, which we are), this summer my wife and I have been enjoying a simple mixed drink that my wife’s friend turned her onto: Vodka and soda with lemon.

Nothing too complex here. Approximately one part vodka per every three parts of club soda, plenty of ice, finely dressed with a lemon slice. We’ve been using Ketel One much of the summer, but I would guess that any decent vodka will do.

The beauty of this drink, and its potential attraction to anybody watching their girly/metrosexualish figure, is that it’s low in calories: Zero calories in club soda and 64 calories in one ounce of vodka.

In theory, at least, the typical mixed drink has one shot, or 1.5 ounces, of vodka, which means a a satisfying vodka and soda with lemon has the same amount of calories as a bottle (or worse -- if it can actually get any worse -- a can) of that tasteless, sorry waste of tap water, Miller Lite (96 calories) and nearly half the calories of the new "Cosmo" of beers, Blue Moon (174 calories).

More recently, we’ve been enjoying a twist on this drink: Absolut Pear and soda with lime. My highest recommendations to either.

I Feel Ya', Guys!

These baby barn swallows have nothing to do with fresh tomato sauce -- which is supposed to be the subject of this post -- but they are darn cute and, like me, they are perpetually waiting to eat, which is why they are so perilously perched on the edge of their nest! They are waiting for momma or poppa barn swallow to deliver some bugs to eat, a process that, according to one source, begins at dawn and continues until dusk.

The little buggers – excuse the pun – may make a mess of our front porch, and mom and dad (not to mention sisters and brothers from the first brood of the year) can get a wee-bit aggressive when they see anybody within shouting distance of the nest, but it’s still enjoyable watching them go from scrawny gray balls of fuzz to sleek black and rust flyers in a matter of weeks.

Now, back to fresh tomato sauce…

This is in line with a number of recipes I have seen for fresh tomato sauce. The batch I made last night (using tomatoes from our CSA) had excellent flavor, but, to be honest, had a bit of an acidic finish, which is a known risk of fresh tomato sauce, particularly if, like me, you do not scoop out the seeds and pulp. I’ve seen several suggested remedies, from sugar to red wine vinegar to carrots (the latter of which Mario Batali includes in his basic tomato sauce recipe).

I suppose when I reheat the sauce to eat it some time in the future, I’ll probably stir in a teaspoon of sugar and I’m fairly confident that will temper the acidity. Also, I’m not a fan of thick tomato sauces (unless it’s a Bolognese or other type of meat sauce, which is an altogether different animal in my mind), so I only cooked the sauce for a brief time.

Fresh Tomato Sauce

- 2 to 3 pounds of garden fresh tomatoes
- 1 medium onion, finely diced
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- ½ teaspoon of crushed red pepper
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon of fresh basil, chopped
- 1 teaspoon of fresh oregano, chopped
- A hefty pinch or two of salt and some fresh pepper


Fill a large bowl with cold water and some ice. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Score the tomatoes with two or three long slices (just on the surface) and put in the boiling water for 1 minute. Drain the tomatoes and quickly immerse in the cold water. After a minute, remove the tomatoes, peel them, and chop them up.

Put a few swirls of olive oil in a pan and warm over medium heat. Add garlic and crushed red pepper and cook for a few minutes. Add onions and cook until they are soft, 4-5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper, combine well, and let cook over medium-low heat for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the basil and oregano.

NOTES:

First, if you’d prefer the sauce not to be chunky, or if you have kids who think chunky sauce is just plain wrong, run the sauce through a big food processor.

Second, if you like a thicker sauce, you can let it cook for 20-30 minutes, partially covered.

Third, as I mentioned earlier, to temper the acidity of the tomatoes, you might want to consider adding a teaspoon of sugar at the same time you add the tomatoes. That said, I made a whole lot of fresh sauce last year with tomatoes from our garden and it was not acidic at all. Quite the opposite: light and a little fruity. To be safe, you might consider omitting the pulp and seeds of maybe half of the tomatoes, at least the first time around.

It's the Smell!

It’s a foregone conclusion that store-bought tomatoes simply don’t have the flavor of tomatoes you get from your local farmer or your own garden. The tomatoes we’ve had already from our own garden have been excellent.

But there’s something else you don’t get from store-bought tomatoes (and even from the farm): The smell of the whole tomato plant. Sifting through the leaves and vine-like branches on the three tomato plants in our garden leaves a fantastic, supremely fresh smell on my hands.

Some of the tomatoes pictured above went into a salsa I made this evening, while a whole bunch that I picked up from our CSA yesterday will go into a fresh tomato sauce I’m hoping to make tomorrow evening. The fresh tomato sauce we made last year using tomatoes from our garden brought a smile to my face: A light, almost fruity flavor that required little in the way of help from herbs or spices. I froze some and, man, did it taste good on a cool, fall day in November.

Can’t wait to make some more.

In any case, speaking of farms, hate to see things like this. In Finland, at least, farmers aren’t very happy:

Self employment is good for productivity, except for farmers, who score badly on every measure of health and quality of life, reveals a study published ahead of print in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Finnish researchers used validated survey data to assess factors affecting productivity, as well as perceived health and quality of life among a random sample of 5000 adults aged between 30 and 64.

[snip]

The farmers and entrepreneurs tended to be older than the salaried workers, and all the self employed who were sole traders tended to have lower levels of educational attainment and incomes than their peers with staff and salaried workers.

When productivity was assessed separately, more than a third of farmers achieved low or average scores. This compares with 16% of salaried workers and sole traders and 12% of entrepreneurs with staff.

MEANWHILE, in what you could put in the qualified good news bin, researchers from the University of Delaware report some findings on their research into the diet of chickens raised on big factory chicken farms:

Millions of chickens in Delaware--one of the nation's top poultry producers--have been on a diet to reduce their impact on the environment and improve the health of the state's waterways, and it appears to be working.

Extensive research led by William Saylor, professor of animal and food sciences at the University of Delaware, has confirmed that Delaware chickens now digest more of the phosphorus, an essential nutrient, in their feed, thanks to the addition of a natural enzyme called phytase. As a result, about 23 percent less phosphorus is output in chicken manure.

So now when poultry litter is used to fertilize a farm field, a lot less phosphorus is available to potentially leach from the soil or be carried off in storm water to a river or bay.

And that's good news for waterways like Delaware's Inland Bays, where overloads of nutrients, particularly phosphorus and nitrogen, have contributed to serious water-quality problems, such as massive blooms of algae and fish kills.

I refer to this as qualified good news because it really will do nothing to reduce the size of these big-a@# farms, which are a toxic nightmare…

To put it in perspective, in 2006, Delaware farmers produced over 269 million broiler chickens--1.8 billion pounds of poultry--valued at more than $739 million, according to the Delmarva Poultry Industry. Those chickens produced more than 280,000 tons of waste.

They are a toxic nightmare precisely because of the way they house and care for the chickens in these factory farms (often called CAFOs) – jammed by the thousands into these long, open-air sheds with massive fans at either end to keep the air at a manageably toxic stench, pumped full of antibiotics so they don’t get sick and infect each other and become a loss on the P&L, if that’s the proper accounting term (if so, my wife will be very proud).

Hmmm, it makes me wonder whether this will make the folks who run these farms think, “Well, gee, then maybe I can jam even MORE chickens onto these farms now…” That’s a scary, and possibly realistic, thought.

FINALLY, some more qualified good news from Elanor at the Ethicurean, which she received from the Community Food Security Coalition, about the version of the Farm Bill passed in the House:

Well, the happy news is that the House, in all its (occasional) wisdom, passed a provision allowing state-inspected meat to be sold across state lines, assuming the state’s standards "meet or exceed" the USDA’s. That’s great news for smaller meat producers who can’t get their animals into the giant USDA-inspected facilities and for those living near a state line.

In the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan relays the story of Bev Eggleston, a Virginia man who established EcoFriendly Farms, part of which included going into debt to renovate an old meat processing facility so that local farmers -- that is, local to Virginia -- could have their beef cattle processed in a facility where they could get a fair price for the processing service and that would treat their cattle as humanely as cattle about to be slaughtered can be.

But the USDA was giving Bev problems because he didn’t have enough volume. They said they couldn’t justify bringing an inspector there for so little volume. That’s why this provision appears to be so important, because it helps level the playing field – a little bit, at least – for small-scale farms.

UPDATE: I have emailed Bev at EcoFriendly to see whether this problem was ever resolved. Hopefully I'll get a (positive) answer.

Coconut Milk, Lemongrass, Shrimp – Need I Say More?

A great cookbook that we picked up at least 5 years ago, Asian Noodles, by Nina Simonds, is chock full of great recipes for soups, salads, entrees and dipping sauces, all — or nearly all — related to Asian noodles.

We’ve made this recipe from that book several times, and what I find most rewarding about it is that it tastes like something you’d get in a good pan-Asian restaurant. Of course, we’ve tinkered with it to make it more to our tastes (e.g., cutting up only 1 red onion instead of 2, which just sounds excessive), but it really is a satisfying meal when you've got a hankering for some Thai or Vietnamese flavors.

If you’ve never cooked with some of these ingredients or done any Asian cooking in general, it takes some getting used to. Read through the recipe carefully and make sure you have all of your ingredients laid out and ready to go. It’s really a simple recipe to follow, as long as you’re prepared, thus the overabundance of “notes” I’ve included.

Enough blabbering….

Curried Coconut Shrimp on Rice Noodles

• 6-8 ounces of thin rice sticks, often called vermicelli, cooked until just tender, rinsed under cold water and drained [NOTE: I fill a big pot with hot water, put the noodles in, and bring it to a boil and cook until all signs of stiffness are gone; recommend watching the noodles very carefully.]
• 1–2 tablespoons of safflower or canola oil
• 1.5 lbs of medium, peeled, deveined shrimp (remember, look for the domestic, wild caught stuff, if at all possible)
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
  
• 1.5 cups of frozen peas [NOTE: I suspect some blanched sugar-snap peas or cauliflower florets, or some other veggies along those lines would also work well]
• 1 cup of fresh basil, cut into chiffonade (aka, rolled up and sliced into thin strips)

Fragrant seasonings

• 1.5 tsps of crushed red pepper
• 2 stalks of lemongrass, outer leaves removed, cut into small lengths [NOTE: When I get lemongrass in the grocery store, it usually comes in a little herb pack, already cut up into 4-5 inch pieces; we use about 4 of these “stalks”, removing the outer layer and any tough ends.]
• One 1.5 inch piece of peeled ginger, cut into a few small pieces
• 1.5 tsps of cumin
• 1.5 tsps of coriander
• 1 tsp of salt
• Good sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper
  

Coconut sauce

• 1.5 cups of coconut milk [NOTE: The recipe does not distinguish between sweetened, unsweetened, light, etc. We have used light, sweetened coconut milk with good results].
• 3 tablespoons of fish sauce [NOTE: If you’ve never used fish sauce, it’s a pungent, brown liquid that these days can be found in most large grocery stores. It may not be the best fish sauce in that case, but as somebody who has tried to buy fish sauce in an Asian market can tell you, it’s a lot easier and produces a satisfying result]
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Cook the noodles as instructed above. Be sure to do this BEFORE you are ready to make the rest of the dish, because the rest of it happens quickly.

Combine the “fragrant seasonings” in a food processor and blend them until they are a coarse powder -- 10-15 seconds should do.

Mix together the coconut sauce.

Heat a big wok or stick-free skillet over medium-high heat

Add the oil and let it get hot for 30 seconds or so, then add the “fragrant seasonings” and sliced onion, reduce the heat to medium and stir-fry for 3-4 minutes until the onions are tender.

Add the coconut sauce and cook for another 3-4 minutes.

Add the shrimp and return the pan heat to medium-high, cooking until all the shrimp are pink, again, 3-4 minutes.

Add the peas and basil and stir in.

At this point, you can, as the original recipe instructs, put a little heap of noodles on a plate and spoon on the shrimp mixture. We have had good success simply putting the noodles in a big bowl and dumping the mixture over top of them, as you’d do with marinara and some capellini.

Serve immediately.

Scraping Up the Bits...

Some odds and ends from the last few days...

GO FIGURE… drinking a can of soda a day makes a person far more likely to develop “metabolic syndrome,” a constellation of physiologic factors that increases your risk for heart disease, diabetes, etc. Shocking, I declare, just shocking.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, brings in 6 chefs to review the new Catherine Zeta Jones-as-big-time-chef flick, “No Reservations,” and they are a little perturbed that Ms. Jones’ character’s signature dish, a quail, is really… a squab. Those crazy Hollywood folks.

And what’s that stuff they put in all of those sodas – that’s it, high fructose corn syrup, made from all of that corn grown in this country, subsidized by the government, so we can buy 32 ounce Big Gulps for 99 cents. Which brings me to …

This Farm Bill thing, about which I become less and less sure every day. A bunch of farm and non-farm groups are getting behind this FARM 21 proposal, but one of the big groups, the Center for Rural Affairs (CRA), says it doesn't do enough to help small- and mid-sized family farms, among other shortcomings. And now the Democrats are reportedly going to try to fund increases in food stamp and other nutrition programs included in the bill with some new taxes that the aforementioned CRA is attacking. I don’t like new taxes, but this is on profits made by companies that set up subsidiaries in other countries to shelter those profits from U.S. taxes. That doesn’t sound all that bad to me.

And now there is a White House veto threat. Maybe that would be a GOOD thing. A veto might slow this grain train down and allow more time to craft something that isn’t just another boon for the big agri-biz companies at the expense of small- and mid-size farms.

And the bill that passed the House Ag Committee is going to the full House for debate today! I want to call my House rep and tell him something, I’m just not sure what. No wonder this bill is the source of so much confusion. That’s because it’s so confusing!

FINALLY, coming soon, a recipe for an excellent curried shrimp dish.

Not Going Well

All indications are that it is not going well with the farm bill.

But first, this was too beautiful not to put on display:

That’s a 6-lb beauty from nearby Misera’s Organic Farm, prepared yesterday by my wife. It’s a Mario Batali recipe, a balsamic and red-wine glazed roasted chicken, with some rosemary and garlic rubbed under and over the skin, and some thickly sliced red onions thrown into the bottom of the roasting pan.

Those red onions make an excellent complement to the bitter grilled radicchio served with the chicken – all of which we enjoyed with a glass of Privada, an Argentinean wine from the Malbec region.

NOW, back to more important matters. As I have said in earlier posts, I am no expert on the farm bill and I am more than certain that there are some seriously different opinions on the most important reforms.

However, I am of the mind that, if the farmers and farm groups aren’t happy, then it must not be good. Mark “Mental Masala” also has an excellent rundown of farm-focused groups’s many cricitisms of this alleged reform bill.

While directing readers to let Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-CA) know how they feel about this bill, Mental cites one example that demonstrates just how out of whack this bill is:

Tell the Speaker that we need a farm bill for all Americans, not just the commodity growers and absentee landowners (like the mysterious Constance Bowles, who collected $1,210,865 in farm payments between 2003 and 2005 while living in a posh neighborhood in San Francisco…

Thanks, Neko

Had the privilege last evening of seeing who in my view is one of the best singer/songwriters around, with a hearty emphasis on singer, Neko Case. This clip, while good, doesn't do her live performance justice.

No Frying, No Cheap Hot Sauce

Having grown up in a town that was just shy of nutso about chicken wings – or buffalo wings, as they are often referred to by some – I have always had a fondness for a tasty wing.

Unfortunately, many bars and a good bunch of restaurants view wings as afterthoughts, over-frying them, using from what I can tell almost no seasoning, and then dousing them in surplus-style "hot sauce" or "tangy BBQ sauce" -- runny, bitingly spicy, often tasteless dressings that will likely be masked in part by the blue cheese or ranch dressings served along with the wings that said customers will proceed to dunk their wings in.

A pure travesty, I say.

We had never made wings at home until nearly two years ago, when I came across a wing recipe in Food & Wine from the monotoned “celebrity chef” Tyler Florence (who, I know, I know, has officially jumped the shark – or perhaps red snapper or bluefin tuna – with his new Applebees gig) that sounded too good and too easy not to try.

I believe Tyler displayed his remarkably diverse vocabulary in describing these wings as “delicious,” and, I have to report, he was correct. They are pretty close to the perfect chicken wing.

First, they are simple to make. Baking, no frying them in a big vat of just-waiting-to-scald-your-skin oil.

Second, they have the intense spiciness of red curry paste (but don't punish your lips by leaving them dry and burning for two hours after you've finished eating), countered by the welcome tang of lime juice and zest.

And, third… well, there is no third. That’s about it. Easy and "delicious." ‘Nuff said.

Red Curry-Lime Wings

- 4 pounds of chicken wings
- Few drizzles of extra-virgin olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 4-6 tbs of butter (you can stick to the lower end and the result is still “delicious”)
- 1 tablespoon of red curry paste (most decent grocery stores carry this now)
- 1 tablespoon of honey
- Grated zest and juice of one lime
- 1 teaspoon (maybe a tad more) soy sauce

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees

Toss the wings in a bowl with the olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Bake the wings in the oven for about 40 minutes. [NOTE: An important tactic here is to use a quality nonstick baking pan and to check on the wings every 15 minutes to make sure they aren’t sticking. Otherwise, when the wings are done, you’ll be trying to pry them from the pan, which, if you're like me, leads to bouts of cursing and slamming of various cooking utensils!]

While the wings bake, mix together the remaining ingredients (butter through soy sauce). Do yourself a favor and soften the butter beforehand.

When the wings are done, mix the wings and curry paste-lime mixture in a big bowl. [NOTE: I’d recommend against using your hands. That curry has a way of finding any little nicks on your fingers and inflicting some serious ouchies.]

FINAL NOTE: I have yet to see 4-pound bags of wings. If you’re going to do 3 pounds, you really don’t need to adjust the amount of sauce. If you’re going with closer to, say, 6 pounds, just add a little more of each of the sauce ingredients. The key, in my opinion, is ensuring you have enough curry paste, butter, and lime juice/zest.

FINAL, FINAL NOTE: If you can afford it, try to find local or sustainably raised chickens. Whole Foods carries Bell & Evans' antiobiotic-free, horomone-free wings, but, unfortunately, they aren't cheap.

Subsidies: Is Farm Bill Girl Right?

I don’t know. I don’t know enough about this behemoth piece of legislation commonly known as the Farm Bill to answer definitively, but in her diary from a week or so ago on Daily Kos, Farm Bill Girl quickly made me question what just a day or two earlier I had felt was a good idea (so much so that I wrote an anti-subsidy post on it): to support and promote an amendment to the Farm Bill authored by Rep. Ron Kind, D-WI, that has generated some serious noise on the Hill called Farm 21.

But before any more on that, there’s a reason why this is important. According to Mark R. “Mental Masala” over at the absolutely excellent Ethicurean blog, the House Agriculture Committee today started what will be three days of work on finalizing a farm bill to send on to the full House.

So the next two days could be crucial. But back to subsidies and Farm Bill Girl...

FARM 21 would end the massive subsidies programs in the farm bill for commodity crops like corn and soybeans, and instead create “risk management accounts” for farmers.

These subsidies have been demonized by many well-intentioned people -- including the author of the wonderful book Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan, and the Environmental Working Group – as a root cause of the problems created by the farm bill (e.g., its impact on obesity, the environment, illegal immigration, etc.).

But Farm Bill Girl (whom I will refer to as FBG for the remainder of this post) argued the opposite. She said that subsidies were a symptom of the serious systemic dysfunction created by the farm bill.

The root of that problem is corporate consolidation of agriculture, where a few agribusiness companies dominate global trade markets (i.e. ADM/Cargill for corn, Smithfield/Tyson for livestock, WalMart and various other corporations who dominate supermarkets in Europe, the US) to the misery of all farmers suffering from low prices that never meet their costs of production.

This resonated with me. It made sense, particularly after reading Fast Food Nation some years ago and, more recently, an excellent expose of factory pig farms in Rolling Stone and the aforementioned Omnivore’s Dilemma.

FBG continues talking about commodity subsidies, and our food system, which is

premised upon letting the "market" set prices for commodities, and then using subsidies when those prices are driven too low. Subsidies do barely keep rural America afloat. Ken Cook [of the Environmental Working Group] deliberately distorts his database to look like it's all going to "millionaire farmers" and that 66% of farmers never receive farm payments. Well, most of that 2/3rds are "rural residence" farms, meaning a lot of wealthy landowners with their hobby farms, not real farmers. For full-time farmers, most do receive some sort of subsidy, and farmers I know that are family farmers are in the top 10% of that database, receiving about $20,000 a year (remember though, this was when prices collapsed after 1996. This year, those numbers will be significantly decreased because of the higher prices). Also, most payments are going to districts like North Dakota and South Dakota and Iowa and Nebraska (Scott Kleeb's district he ran in). What do these have in common? They're not known for millionaires. They're known for tough economies where young people are leaving in droves and no one young goes into farming. So clearly, subsidies are going to places that need it, but they clearly aren't doing much to keep these places alive or growing.

FBG goes into some of the history before the farm bill, before gross agricorp consolidation. You can read more about this history in a great primer on the Farm Bill by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

All of it is much more than I wanted to go into here. But the history does point to the wisdom of reinstituting a policy from years past that helped to curtail the overproduction of crops, which keeps prices low for the big agribusinesses (prices below what it costs the farmers to produce the crops, thus the need for the subsidies, which began in 1996 as “emergency payments”): a reserve for crops that can store well, to keep them off the market and keep prices fair for the farmers producing them.

The IATP, FBG, and other farm groups also advocate the establishment of a price floor for commodity crops. This goes back to the subsidies argument, and again I’ll go back to FBG:

Subsidies DO do all the bad things progressives think it does: fuel agribusiness, fuel factory farms, dumps on third world. But it does NOT cause overproduction. It's the pricing system we need to look at. If farmers got a fair living wage for their product, there would be NO NEED for subsidies.

Again, this really resonates with me. And it makes sense. Pay farmers a fair price for their product, as well as encourage organics, support local food systems, support environmentally sound uses of farm land, and stop indirectly subsidizing the Tysons and ADMs and Cargills of the world. Sounds like a good bill to me!

As for FARM 21, the Center for Rural Affairs’ Blog for Rural America has this to say:

• While FARM 21 would change the basic structure of farm programs, it does little in the way of making sure that farm program benefits flow to small and mid-size family farms (jump to more about this);
• FARM 21 does not close the loopholes used to avoid farm program payment limits (jump to more about this);
• FARM 21 shifts large amounts of money to conservation programs- a laudable goal- but invests most of that money into the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which subsidizes enormous manure lagoons and the concentration of livestock production (jump to more about this);
• FARM 21 places much-needed resources behind some rural economic development programs, but others receive inadequate amounts (jump to more about this);
• FARM 21 does not include any crucial livestock market competition reforms;

But even any discussion of FARM 21 may be moot. Mental Masala pointed to disturbing statements from House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., on FarmPolicy.com about the Farm Bill’s prospects:

“Reacting to public and private statements by Republicans that they think Congress is more likely to extend the 2002 farm bill than rewrite it, Peterson said, ‘Maybe there’s a bigger strategy. The Republicans don’t want anything [to pass] in the Congress.’”

So clearly activity from the net roots is going to be important to get a truly progressive farm bill through Congress. You can get far more information on this bill at several of the sources mentioned in this post, including the Ethicurean, IATP, Blog for Rural America.

This is actually encouraging

A new survey by Consumer Reports magazine finds that more than 90% of those surveyed want their food to come with a “country of origin” label. One of the study’s co-authors said he was “shocked” by the response, attributing it to the recent food recalls for things like tainted...

- peanut butter
- bagged spinach
- green onions

And, while it doesn’t qualify as food – for most people, that is - there's also that little carcinogen-laced low-cost toothpaste to make you feel all warm and groggy.

Speaking of real food, we haven't made this yet, but, you know how I feel about the dark stuff, and I'm becoming a big fan of Melissa Clark's recipes, even though she does bear a scary resemblance to an SNL-era Laraine Newman (of whom, remarkably, I cannot find a picture from that time!).

Fruits and Veggies Need Your Help

The United States has the highest incidence of obesity in the developed world. We scarf down Big Macs, barbecue potato chips, stuffed-crust pizzas, and 32-ounce Big Gulps as if we get bonus points in heaven for most calories consumed.

Part of the problem is the cost of this so-called food. It's dirt cheap. And that can be directly attributed to a behemoth piece of federal legislation commonly known as the farm bill. The 2007 farm bill currently is slowly winding its way through the House and Senate committees that oversee agriculture issues, committees chock full of legislators from "farming states" who, in years past, have developed this extremely important bill with little outside scrutiny.

To be very honest, I understand very little about the farm bill, including the most recent one passed in 2002 that some members of Congress want to renew as is.

But I do know a few things about it. For example, as a result of the 2002 farm bill:

- $67.6 billion in subsidies was doled out to support the production of just 5 crops, or, as they are often called, “commodities”: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice. In the case of corn, much of it will undergo significant processing and end up in various forms (high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, pectin, and a disturbingly long list of other additives) in a can of Pepsi, a box of Lucky Charms, or a package of Scooby Doo (not-so) fruit roll-ups. [The majority of it will end up as cattle feed, but that's another topic for another post.]

- Growers of fresh fruits and vegetables receive NO subsidies.

The outcome (free registration required)of this gross, entirely criminal discrepancy:

Between 1985 and 2000 the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables increased nearly 40 percent, while the price of soft drinks decreased by almost 25 percent, adjusted for inflation…

Now, combine that with the results of a study by obesity researcher Dr. Adam Drewnowski that Michael Pollan recently discussed and you start to see something truly devious at work:

Drewnowski gave himself a hypothetical dollar to spend, using it to purchase as many calories as he possibly could. He discovered that he could buy the most calories per dollar in the middle aisles of the supermarket, among the towering canyons of processed food and soft drink. (In the typical American supermarket, the fresh foods--dairy, meat, fish and produce--line the perimeter walls, while the imperishable packaged goods dominate the center.) Drewnowski found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.

As a rule, processed foods are more "energy dense" than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening. These particular calories also happen to be the least healthful ones in the marketplace, which is why we call the foods that contain them "junk." Drewnowski concluded that the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly--and get fat.

In other words, beside the documented environmental impact of the monoculture farms that raise most of these “commodities” – it takes nearly 10 times the amount of calories of fossil fuel energy to grow and process the corn that is used in sodas and chicken nuggets, etc. for every calorie of actual food (if you want to call a chicken nugget that!) produced – the government is shelling out billions of dollars to make Americans fat!

Is it any surprise, then, that obesity is an epidemic in this country and America, by far and away, has the fattest populace in the world?

So what’s the impact of our national girth? I'll let the leadership of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) explain:

Obesity and unhealthy eating constitute a national crisis, with $117 billion per year in estimated treatment and indirect costs. The epidemic of child obesity, however, promises a worse crisis in the making – these children will have more heart disease, diabetes, cancer and stroke, in some cases not long after they become adults.

The IATP also has a great primer on the farm bill.

Sadly, the farm bill reportedly is well understood by just a handful of legislators, mostly from states whose farms – again, mostly big agri-businesses – receive most of its taxpayer-funded largess.

As I already acknowledged, I know little about the farm bill. But the fact that there are no subsidies for fruits and vegetables is enough to suggest it is a truly misguided piece of legislation.

Enough groups and people finally are now coming together to try to make important changes to the farm bill, including supporting a proposal put forth by Rep. Ron Kind (D) from Wisconsin that would slash many farm subsidies and boost funds for land conservation and rural development.

One way to get our government to make supporting affordable, safe [a related topic also deserving of its own post], and healthy food a priority in the farm bill is to call or email your elected representatives and tell them to support any measures in the farm bill that reduce subsidies for crops that make us fat and that promote the production of fresh fruits and vegetables and, very importantly, sustainable, local food systems.

UPDATE: To keep up to date on the most recent happenings with the farm bill, both the IATP and Environmental Working Group (EWG) maintain portions of their Web sites dedicated to the farm bill.

Is that a zucchini in your pocket?

One zucchini plant: $2.99

5 bags of Miracle-Gro organic soil: $30

Going away for a 5-day weekend and forgetting to check if any zucchinis were ready for pickin': Scary big zucchini!



FOR THE RECORD: This zucchini from our garden measured in at 18 inches long and, at its most rotund point, 17 inches around.

So what to do with a zucchini this big?

Make Zucchini "steaks," of course.

I cut about 8 6-inch long, 2-inch wide, and one-inch thick slices of the above pictured gigunda zucchini, tossed it with about 2 tbs of olive oil, 1 tsp of chopped thyme, 1-2 tablespoons of chopped flat-leaf parsley, pepper, and a few good pinches of this ridiculously expensive chardonnay-barrel smoked salt that I got at Williams Sonoma last year (too embarassed to put it back after the cashier had rung it up and I saw the price on the register's display).

These were thick, so I grilled them over moderate heat for about 15 minutes, flipping about half-way through. They were great. Next time, though, I'll just do thick pucks. Much easier to cut them that way.

No Anti-Biotics Ever! But Those Darn Chicken “Houses”

So, in a part PR, part savvy-business maneuver, Tyson Foods will be introducing a line of chickens that are antibiotic free.

The company said fresh chicken raised without antibiotics was shipped to stores Monday and will be sold beginning this week in packaging that emphasizes that there are no artificial ingredients.

These chickens will cost more. Why? Well, after reading Michael Pollan’s wonderful Omnivore’s Dilemma, I learned (and you could, too) that the antibiotics are needed to keep the chickens alive long enough to get to the market.

Why the dramatically elevated risk of an early visit to broiler heaven? Well, in the book, Pollan actually goes to a farm in California that produces “organic” chickens that are, as the name organic implies, antibiotic free. What do we learn: There are 20,000 of them in a “long, low-slung” shed “with giant fans at either end” to keep the rancid smell created by that many chickens in one place at an only semi-nauseating level. And this is just a run-of-the-mill industrial organic chicken operation. Imagine what a Tyson's operation must look like (Pollan tried to get a peak, but, alas, all of the big boy chicken purveyors turned him down)!

He had to wear a hazmat-like suit to go into the shed because of the fear of infection which, because of such close quarters for that many chickens, “could doom a whole house overnight.”

It's little naughty details like this that make me never want to purchase chicken at the grocery store again. Tomorrow afternoon, in fact, I’ll be ordering a whole lot o' chicken, both whole and parts, from Misera’s Organic Farm in Butler, Pa. These birds receive no antibiotics, do not live in mega-crowded quarters, and actually get to go out and eat the goodies they really like to eat, like grass and grubs from the poop of cows—sounds gross, but makes for some darn good chicken, I can tell you that!

These are, from what I can tell, Salatin-style chickens, as in Joel Salatin, the owner and operator of Polyface Farms, a farm in Virginia where Pollan visited for one week to see how it operates. The effort Joel Salatin puts into running this farm – and the intellectual work needed to maintain a 100% sustainable farm with no pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, etc. – is truly amazing.

In any case, Tyson’s move is one in the right direction. When they start investing in and supporting more farm’s like Misera’s, then I’ll be impressed

Speaking of chicken, I highly recommend this recipe. It’s one of our favorites.

Fish sandwich

While I can’t claim to create recipes from scratch (although I'm heading in that direction), at least not main courses, one thing at which my wife and I have proven particuarly adept is adapting a favorite dish from a restaurant.

One of our most successful restaurant-rip-off meals is a grilled fish sandwich, which we adapted from Cafe Deluxe, a popular, family-friendly restaurant with several locations in the Washington, D.C. area. It’s relatively easy to make, fairly sloppy to eat, and genuinely enjoyable. All it takes is some good bread, some small filets of trout or flounder, lettuce, tomato, maybe some avocado or bacon (or both!!), and, most definitely, a thick slathering of a really simple remoulade sauce.

This is enough for two fish sandwiches.

• 2 small trout filets
  
• 4 slices of fresh, rustic bread
• Lettuce
• Tomato
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  
• Few dashes of cayenne
• Few dashes of chili pepper powder
• Salt and pepper

Remoulade sauce:

• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
• 4 tablespoons of mayo
  
• A few dashes of hot sauce
• 1 tablespoon tarragon
• 1 garlic clove, smashed with the side of a knife
• 2 tablespoon of capers, chopped
• Salt and pepper

Light a grill, get it to a moderate heat.

Combine all of the ingredients for the remoulade in a bowl and stir well. Remember: taste and adjust! I like it with some heat and some tang.

Sprinkle the fish with cayenne, chili pepper powder, salt and pepper, and then drizzle the olive oil over top. Grill the fish over moderate heat (we usually do it on foil – don’t get the grill marks, but don’t get the fish sticking to the grill either!) until it starts to flake.

Put 1 filet on a slice of bread, add the toppings, put a generous slather of remoulade on the other slice of bread and, by Jove, you’ve got it!

Again, you can add some bacon or a few thin slices of avocado to this sandwich and it’s all the better.

Indigestion

I don’t watch much TV these days outside of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games (which, ironically, given how bad the Pirates are, is not the topic of this post), a little soccer, maybe repeats of The Office and 30 Rock, now that the new season has begun, some Top Chef on Bravo, and occasionally ESPN or Wolfie “Happening Now!” Blitzer on CNN.

Even with such a limited viewing repertoire, I have managed to see some commercials lately that literally make my tummy get a little gurgly—namely, commercials for new offerings from our still-burgeoning fast-food industry.

Among these are ads for Pizza Hut’s new P’zone, Wendy’s triple cheeseburger, KFC’s “Famous Bowls,” and any of the ads for Quiznos’ myocardial infarction-inducing toasted subs.

The P’zone ad boasts that it has one freaking pound of meat, veggies, and cheese in it.

KFC’s “Famous Bowls” include a chicken and biscuit bowl: mashed potatoes, corn, little bits of fried chicken, cheese, and most-likely sodium-packed and synthetically flavored “white gravy” all conveniently packed into one bowl. Oh, yeah, as the name explains, a freakin’ biscuit on the side.

Quiznos is fond of bragging about how much meat and cheese they can pile onto one of their famously toasted subs, including ads touting its new baja chicken, which has what looks to be half of a chicken on it, bacon, cheddar cheese, chiptole mayo, and the mysterious baja sauce.

And Wendy’s most recent add for its triple cheeseburger has people in a forest, including a male ring leader wearing a red “Wendy” wig, complete with upturned pigtails, chanting “Fresh, juicy burger” – fresh, because their prefab square meat patties are “never frozen” – a novel take on “fresh” if ever I’ve heard one.

When I see these commercials, I’m glad we don’t eat fast food in our household. And I understand why I get sick from even a single slice of a Pizza Hut offering. And I further appreciate why an estimated 65.2 percent of U.S. adults 20 or older are overweight and 15 percent of children and adolescents are overweight and 30.5 percent are obese.

It also makes me glad that summer’s here, that we can get truly fresh veggies and fruit from our CSA – that is “fresh” as in dug out of the ground or picked from the vine about 8 hours or so before I pick it up at the farm.

Now if somebody can help me get my kids to even consider putting some fresh shell peas or balsamic and garlic laden asparagus in their mouths, I’d be like a gopher in soft dirt -- you know, really happy.

No… More… Jarred… Tomato… Sauce… EVER!!!!

Even in a household where a lot of cooking happens, when you have two working parents and two kids, at some point you have to take the easy way out. In the past, that meant using a jarred tomato sauce on occasion (usually a brand typically sold at Whole Foods that, with a little added salt, wasn't that bad).

Well, it’s probably been at least 18 months since I've had a jarred tomato sauce. Once I made a good, simple tomato sauce a few times, barring a serious physical injury to prevent me from choppping up an onion and some garlic and opening a can of whole tomatoes the night before, it just seemed silly to revert to the jar. It literally takes 30-40 minutes—and most of that is letting the sauce cook on the stovetop.

It takes a few simple ingredients and, if you want, a few more ingredients to make the flavors a little more complex. This sauce includes a little red wine, which tempers the tomatoes a bit and provides a more full-bodied flavor.

Basic Tomato Sauce

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 small sweet onion, diced
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 28 oz. can of whole tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh basil
• ¼ cup of red wine
• salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions and garlic and sauté until the onions are tender, about 7 minutes. Add the wine and let it cook for a few minutes to burn off some of the alcohol, then add the tomatoes, lightly smashing them up with a wooden spoon or, as I like to do – because it’s far less frustrating! – a potato masher.

After a few minutes, when the sauce begins to resemble a sauce, add the basil, salt, and pepper. Let it simmer for 20 minutes or so. Don’t let it cook too long or it will get too thick (yeah, I did that very thing this past Sunday).

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

SPEAKING OF simple tomato sauces... A recipe in the Jan. 3 New York Times combined a simple tomato sauce with a nut pesto over some bucatini. It was called buccatini all lipari and, let me tell you, it really was something like I’ve never had.

Unfortunately, that issue of the Times is old enough that the recipe is available online only to paid subscribers or for a one-time fee. However, some other food bloggers saw it and were equally enthralled with it.

For the nut pesto, I only used one cup of nuts—pistachios, hazelnuts, and almonds (yes - gasp - no pine nuts)—instead of two, but the same amount of mint. It was still fantastic. To be honest, I’d think two cups of nuts would be overwhelming.

If you get a chance, make this.

Come to the Dark Side

There was a point during the 1990s and even early in this decade where, with the exception of the occasional dalliance with chicken wings to chase down a beer, my wife and I never ate chicken.

In our early, poor, culinarily clueless days together we had bad experiences with “quick and easy” meals that relied on boneless chicken breast. They universally sucked, so we quickly abandoned cooking chicken at home. Even as we became more food savvy, it seemed like sheer buffoonery to order chicken, even if it sounded particularly good, at any restaurant that had equally attractive meat or seafood dishes. Really, how good could it be compared to mussels and frites or a perfectly prepared flank steak topped with a remarkable country mustard sauce?

Our re-introduction to chicken came in the form of a roasted whole chicken we prepared in our first-ever house. It was, remarkably, delicious (the chicken, not the house). Some herbs and butter concocted into a paste and rubbed under the skin, some more herbs and lemon halves jammed into the cavity. The result was a juicy, succulent bird—something I didn’t know was possible. [More recently we have roasted some whole organic chickens we got from some local farmers and they are by far the most tasty chickens I've ever had.]

After success with whole chickens (well, really, my wife’s success), I was lured into making some recipes that relied strictly on dark meat – legs and thighs. We’ve been hooked on the dark ever since.

It’s funny, because I think we, like many Americans, had been conditioned to believe that dark meat was bad for you (it isn’t; one cup of diced chicken thigh has about 150 more calories and 2-3 more grams of fat than an equivalent amount of white meat -- not negligible, but not unmanageable) or that it didn’t taste as good as the ubiquitous “100% white meat” meals trumpeted in advertisements for fast-food and chain restaurants. But thighs, in particular, are just bursting with flavor, and both legs and thighs lend themselves extremely well to the bold flavors used in Asian and Indian cooking. In my opinion, they also are far easier to cook and less likely to become dry.

We wasted many years as chickenless 20-somethings. Thankfully, we have been wiser in our (cough … early) 30s.

Thai-style chicken thighs and legs (adapted from the June 2006 Food & Wine)

[Note: This is one of those dishes where you do the bulk of the little work there is the night before, because for the best results, the chicken should marinate over night. That said, I’ve made it a few times after letting the chicken marinate for just a few hours and it was still darn good.]

• Heaping 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/4 cup Asian fish sauce
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• Teaspoon or so each of salt and pepper
• 6 chicken thighs
• 6 chicken legs

Combine the cilantro, fish sauce, canola oil, garlic, coriander hoisin sauce, salt, and pepper in a food processor and blend until pretty smooth. Mix the chicken with the marinade in a freezer bag or a big bowl or dish and let it marinate over night in the fridge.

The original recipe called for grilling the chicken skin-side down on a charcoal grill, pushing the hot charcoal to either side and grilling the chicken in the middle, not directly over the hot coals. We have a gas grill with two long burners, so I get the grill pretty hot and then turn down one of the burners a little and put the smaller pieces over the lower flame and the bigger pieces where I can fit them. It’s worked pretty well and typically takes about 30-40 minutes to get crispy, juicy chicken.

Don’t Call it A Comeback – Meta-Style

There are no good excuses for a nearly month and a half absence, but here are some anyway.

First, I was obsessed with the Nov. 7 election and was devoting the time in the evenings I had been doing some of this blogging stuff to election-related work.

Second, I’ve been trying to actually finish reading a book (A Baron in the Trees, by Italo Calvino), which doesn’t happen that often these days. I’m almost done with it.

Third, I haven’t been very inspired. For whatever reason, haven’t had a lot of time to cook much of anything new and none of our stand-bys we were making seemed worthy of posting to this site, at least at the time they didn’t.

The third reason led me to a conclusion that I need to shift the focus of this blog. I’m no chef, just a guy who likes good food and likes to cook good food (and succeeds, most, but not all, of the time).

So while I’m going to keep posting recipes here and there, I’m also going to include shorter posts on food-related issues, including food safety and quality. For example…

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT when it was in the news a few weeks ago: If you’re a seafood fan, eat up now, Johnny. ‘Cause if overfishing continues at the current pace, there ain’t gonna be any left to eat.

"At this point 29 percent of fish and seafood species have collapsed - that is, their catch has declined by 90 percent. It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating," Worm said. "If the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime - by 2048."

ALSO, I found this little story amusing, in a hard-to-f@#!ing-believe sort of way. Two percent - yes, that 2 - of that guacamole some people pick up off a grocery store shelf and actually pay for is actual avocado. And now somebody is suing them for it! Take my advice. Make your own guac.

EGGS -- They’re what’s for dinner. I have yet to make any of these recipes, but a few week’s ago Mark Bittman had some eggs-for-dinner recipes (free registration required) that just seem like must-makers.

Finally, a recommendation for two mid-week meals.

COBALT Sandwiches and Spinach Salad

COBALTs are just a riff on a classic BLT sandwich. It stands for: Cheese, Onion, Bacon, Avocado, Lettuce, Tomato.

I don’t think anybody needs my advice on how to put together a sandwich. However, what we like to do is make the sandwiches using some good bread. Then, you have some leftover to eat the next day with a spinach salad, which you make in part using leftover bacon, avocado, onion, and tomato from the COBALT meal.

In our salad the other night, in addition to the aforementioned leftovers, were some sliced hard-boiled eggs and diced cucumber. Some mushrooms, maybe even quickly sautéed, would also be good additions. A balsamic or sherry vinaigrette works well with this salad.

Vinaigrettes

I honestly cannot remember the last time we bought a bottle of salad dressing. It’s gotten to the point that I can't help but cringe when we are eating at somebody else’s house and they bring out a bottled dressing. Rude, I know. But at least I try to hide or disguise my inappropriate behavior.

I make 3 or 4 vinaigrettes that are far superior to anything you’ll buy in a grocery store and, not surprisingly, easy to make. But making a good vinaigrette, as is the case with most things culinary, requires good ingredients.

That’s why we always have a good bottle of extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and sherry vinegar. I have yet to invest a lot of money in a red-wine vinegar, and, to be honest, I’m not even sure if there is such a thing as a high-quality red wine vinegar, at least not one worth $10-15 a bottle. Although I'm sure there's somebody out there who can/will prove me wrong.

The vinaigrette recipes below are all very similar. All call for fresh herbs, if you have them. Otherwise, a little less of a dried herb will work fine. Some vinaigrette recipes call for garlic, but I don’t think it’s needed.

And, as a bonus, by a fortuitous coincidence, Mark Bittman this week has some recipes for a blue-cheese dressing, ranch dressing, and a miso-carrot dressing with ginger. I expect to try to the blue-cheese dressing quite soon. [Subscription may be required; it’s free and easy.]

Balsamic vinaigrette

• 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
• ¼ cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon of chopped oregano
• Splash of honey
• Salt
• Pepper

Combine the vinegar, mustard, oregano, honey, salt and pepper in a bowl, mix well. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil and briskly mix with a whisk. Drizzle over top of prepared salad and toss well.

Note: This dressing goes very well with salads topped with blue cheese. And, as always, when I mention blue cheese, I must advise that, if you see Maytag brand blue cheese in the grocery store, buy it! You will be ruined on other blue cheeses forever more, but that’s the price of eating well.

Sherry vinaigrette

• 2 tablespoons of sherry vinegar
• ¼ cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon of honey
• 1 teaspoon of chopped thyme or tarragon
• Salt
• Pepper

Combine the vinegar, lemon juice, honey, thyme, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil and briskly mix with a whisk. Drizzle over top of prepared salad and toss well.

Note: We’re fond of putting a little cheese on our salads. This vinaigrette goes well with a fontina cheese, so make this for a salad the same week you make a frittata topped with fontina.

Red-wine vinaigrette

• 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
• ¼ cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon of chopped rosemary
• 1 teaspoon of finely diced shallot
• Salt
• Pepper

Combine the vinegar, lemon juice, rosemary, shallot, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil and briskly mix with a whisk. Drizzle over top of prepared salad and toss well.

Your new favorite chili

Everyone has a chili recipe. Some I’m sure are quite good. Others, maybe not so much (and yet some people continue to make it anyway). The chili we make in our household has evolved over time. It’s been tweaked here and there. Seems like we always have to make substitutions because we thought we had an ingredient in the fridge or cupboard but didn’t (and typically we’re too lazy to run to the grocery store to pick it up).

The chili my wife made the other day was excellent and incorporated a few different chile powders I’ve picked up at the grocery store, two different kinds of beans, and two different kinds of peppers—including my most recent favorite, poblano.

This is definitely one of those recipes, though, where guesstimations are involved. So taste, taste, and taste again as you go along. The end product will be well worth it.

Finallly, this is a good Sunday recipe, because should have leftovers for your Monday meal.

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1 poblano pepper, roasted, cored, and diced
  
• 1 vidalia onion, chopped
• 1 package of mushrooms (whatever you like best, we used sliced baby bellas this time)
• 1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can of whole (peeled) tomatoes, crushed by hand in a bowl
• 2 tbs of brown sugar
• 1 bottle of beer
• 1/2 tbs of chipotle chili powder
• 1 tbs of ancho chili powder
• 1 tbs of standard chili powder
• 1 ripe avocado, diced
• 2 tbs of cilantro, finely chopped
• Sour cream

Brown the ground beef with the onion and red pepper in a large pot over medium heat. When the beef is brown, stir in the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes.

Add the chile powders and brown sugar and stir until well blended. Then add the beans, crushed tomatoes, and roasted poblanos and stir until well blended. Add the beer, stir, bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and cook for at least 20-30 minutes.

At this point, take a taste. You want a hint of sweet, but not too sweet. This is intended to be fairly spicy, so take that into consideration when adding the chili powders. If you want a little more heat after tasting, add a teaspoon more of some chipotle or even some of your favorite hot sauce. Taste again and tweak as needed.

When the chili is where you like it, put some in a bowl, top with some diced avocado, a sprinkling of cilantro, and a small dollop of sour cream.

Random food and drink stuff

A few things worth noting, but no single thing particularly worthy of a longer post.

First, a guacamole update...

Although I think the guacamole recipe I posted not too long ago is pretty much unassailable, I made a tomatillo-poblano guacamole the other day that was fairly successful. Although it was not an improvement upon the original recipe, the roasted poblanos were fantastic.

The poblano’s flavor is richer and smokier than a jalapeno. It doesn’t have the same kick, which may make it a more attractive option to those who, for reasons I cannot possibly fathom, “don’t like spicy food.”

So if a poblano sounds appealing, here’s what you do. Proceed with the recipe sans jalapeno. Turn your gas burner on med-high and, using tongs, hold the poblano over the flame until all sides have a nice black char on them.

Then wrap the poblano in some cling wrap for about five minutes. Remove from the wrap and, using a knife, scrape off the black coating. Cut off the top of the pepper and throw out the big clump of seeds. Dice the poblano and add it to the mixture after you’ve mashed up the avocado a little and are ready to put in the lime juice.

If you don’t have a gas burner, put the oven on broil and roast the poblano for about 3 or 4 minutes to get the outside charred.

Second, a seasonal beer recommendation...

If you have a beer distributor/store near you that carries a hefty assortment of microbrews, keep your eyes out for Dogfish Head Punkin Ale.

We were fortunate enough to catch some of the first pours of this fine seasonal at the Dogfish Head Brewpub in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, during our abbreviated vacation there in August. Amazingly, I have failed to make it to one of the coolest places in the northern Pittsburgh suburbs, 3 Sons Dogs and Suds, since the 3 Sons reported more than two weeks ago that they had Punkin’ Ale in stock. Who knows if it’s even still there!

Generally speaking, you can’t go wrong with any Dogfish Head offering. It is now a staple in our house.

Speaking of beer, probably in the first week of November, I’ll provide some recommendations on the best holiday beers. I hate to sound sacrilegious, but nothing says Christmas like a good holiday brew.

Finally, for the tree-huggers...

I came across this the other day via another food blog (I’d offer a “hatip,” but I can’t remember which blog it was. My apologies. Bad blogging etiquette!) and thought I’d pass it along.

It’s a resource offered by the Monterey Bay Aquarium to help make more environmentally conscious seafood choices. Overfishing is a huge problem, so I’m all for doing what it takes to keep good seafood available and affordable.

UPDATE: Since this post, I have made a trip to 3 Sons and they did have some Punkin Ale in stock. I picked up several 4-packs of Punkin Ale. It is fantastic!

Tender Chops with Roasted Baby Carrots

I grew up under the impression that pork chops were nothing more than overcooked, underseasoned, scrawny scraps, typically accompanied by overcooked, underseasoned roasted potatoes and carrots. [No offense to my mother, she just had certain culinary limitations.]

My children, fortunately, will grow up knowing that pork should be tender, succulent, and always a surprise. It might be a Tex-Mex influenced pork tenderloin or, as is the case here, it might be center-cut pork chops coated with an easy, but elegant spice rub.

Coupled with carrots that you cook in the same pan as the pork and some herby smashed potatoes and you’ve got yourself a fantastic and easy mid-week meal.

Rub (from Fine Cooking magazine)

• 3 teaspoons of dark brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons of crushed fennel seed
• 2 teaspoons of sweet paprika
• 2 teaspoons of garlic powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons of black pepper
• 1 ½ teaspoons of kosher salt

• 4 center-cut pork chops
• 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 to 3 handfuls of baby carrots (cut any particularly big ones in half)
• 1 tablespoon of fresh tarragon (or thyme)
• Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Combine and mix all of the rub items together.

Put a little olive oil on each chop, rub it in, and then coat each chop with some of the spice rub.

Combine the carrots in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of oil, salt, pepper, and tarragon.

Put the remaining olive oil (at least one tablespoon) in a large, oven-proof pan and heat over med-high heat. After a minute or two (you want that pan to be hot), put the chops in the pan and don’t touch them. After 3-4 minutes, flip over (with tongs) and don’t touch them. You want to sear the chops, so don’t move them around in the pan!

Put the carrots in the pan with the chops and put the pan in the oven for no more than 10 minutes. Pull from the oven and serve immediately.

#31

It was a ludicrous question, really. The waiter didn’t even understand it. I have to assume that John and Rachel, the couple there with us, were terribly embarrassed. They knew the restaurant owner, as I recall, a friend of a friend.

They had been going there for dinner regularly since moving into their apartment, which was right next door to ours, in a garden-style complex in one of the more fairly-undesirable locations of Alexandria, Va.

The question I asked:

“Can you leave out the mint? Can I get it without the mint?”

To this day, I’m glad the waiter didn’t speak English. If he had, he probably would have either a) laughed hysterically or b) spit in my hair.

The “it” in which I did not want any mint included was number 31. A traditional Vietnamese dish, number 31 consisted of shredded lettuce and mint leaves covered by squiggly vermicelli noodles. Resting atop the noodles were two skewers of grilled pork that had been marinated in lemongrass and other spices, two halves of a Vietnamese spring roll (also filled with pork), and crushed peanuts. Served on the side is a small cup of a traditional Vietnamese dipping sauce, nuoc cham.

Visit any Vietnamese restaurant and you’re likely to see this same dish, as well as a version with beef or chicken. For reasons I don’t know, only the pork version is accompanied by a spring roll in the bowl.

At the moment of “the question,” I knew absolutely nothing about Vietnamese food. In fact, I knew very little about food at all. To that point in my life, I ate no seafood, no vegetables to speak of. Meat was ordered medium-well. Salads were iceberg lettuce topped with creamy dressings. Beverages—alcoholic ones, at least—were no better. I avoided wine and drank only the water-dressed-as-beer offerings from America’s mega-brewers.

Our presence at this restaurant was the direct result of a new friendship we had developed with our soon-to-be-mollified neighbors. Aside from proximity, we had other important things in common with John and his then-girlfriend (and later ex-wife) Rachel. They, too, were only a year or two out of college. They, too, were new to Washington, D.C. They, too, were working disturbingly low-paying jobs, which meant dining out was a treat.

John had grown up not far from Maryland’s eastern shore, and for many years his father worked in Washington as an attorney for the federal government. His family had friends there, including a Vietnamese woman who had a friend who owned a small restaurant in an area known as Little Vietnam, a single plaza off of Route 7 in Alexandria’s Seven Corner’s area in which every business is geared toward Vietnamese clientele.

It was a weeknight and only a few other customers were there. We were the only Caucasians. It was clean, in that there were no visible signs of dirt or bugs or soiled utensils. There were maybe 12, well-worn tables, with likewise well-worn chairs. Nothing could be described as glimmering. Vietnamese muzak floated around our giggly conversation.

At John and Rachel’s recommendation, Sarah and I both ordered number 31—and a Coke, which was brought to the table in a can, accompanied by a small (possibly plastic) glass.

Based on the menu description, it was clear I had never eaten anything like this before. And, yet, apparently the only thing about it that gave me pause was the mint. As far as I knew, its only use was to flavor iced tea.

The ludicrous question was posed. Because it was obvious the waiter didn’t comprehend it, I gave up. I’d pick out the mint.

When our meal arrived, John and Rachel explained that you pulled the pork off of the skewers and poured the nuoc cham over top. The mint was at the bottom with the other stuff, so it might prove difficult to scoop out.

I was probably pretty hungry, so I just went for it. I tossed it altogether into a big, mysterious heap. I may have even used chop sticks.

The pork was incredible. It was actually tender, something I did not realize was possible. Lemongrass was a revelation for my inexperienced taste buds. The nuoc cham was sweet, a little spicy. The shredded lettuce and peanuts were crunchy.

And the mint? Little bits of it would sort of burst in your mouth, and it made everything else taste that much better.

Over the next year, we would visit Number 31—which is what we came to call the restaurant—at least once a week. Number 31 was our usual. On occasion, we tried, and usually liked, other things.

And we always got a Coke, in the can.

Holy, Holy Guacamole

I have developed a strange obsession with guacamole this summer. Not surprisingly, that obsession has coincided with actually taking the time to make my own.  It’s so simple to make that it’s hard to understand why anybody buys it pre-made at the grocery store. Well, that’s not necessarily true. I think I know why.

First, you have to have ripe avocados, so timing is an issue. Fortunately, our local grocery store almost always has ripe, or nearly ripe, avocados, so that has not been a problem.

The other factor is cost. Avocados are expensive. That said, if your making delicious guacamole, you might be able to justify the cost by using it for more than one meal. We’ll do fish tacos one night with some guac and chips, and then use the leftover the next night to put on a burger or a hot dog. So, if you plan it right, you can stretch that guac as a component of dinner for two nights.

This recipe will be enough for a group of 4 to 6 people.

• 3 ripe avocados
• 3 tablespoons of finely diced red onion
  
• ¼ cup of chopped cilantro
• One ripe tomato, diced
• Two jalapenos, seeded, and finely chopped (one, if you don't like too much heat)
• Half of a lime
• Kosher salt

Combine the onion, cilantro, jalapenos, and a good-sized pinch of salt and mash them with a mortar and pestle until it forms a loose paste.

Cut the avocados in half, take out the pit, scoop out the insides into a bowl. Add the cilantro mixture and squeeze in about half of the juice of the lime, mash with a large serving fork or something similar and combine well. Add the tomatoes and gently combine.

Taste at this point. Might need a little more salt, lime juice, or cilantro. If you have some leftover cilantro, which you should, dice a little up and sprinkle it on top as a garnish.

Tip: Use a roasted jalapeno instead of just a plain ol' raw one. Put over top of a flame on the oven top until blackened all over, about 3-4 minutes. Wrap in plastic wrap for 5 minutes. Remove, scape off the blackened skin with a steak knife, remove seeds and ribbing.

The Nation: All About Food

I missed this, but the Sept. 11 issue of The Nation is all about food. Looks like there is lots of good stuff here. Any thoughts on the articles are welcome (via the Comments, for you blog virgins)...

A Good Piece of Flank Steak

(Adapted from a March 2004 Food & Wine recipe)

One of the meals from my childhood that I remember with a good deal of fondness is cube steak. At the time, I didn’t realize the cube steak was most likely pieced together from some of the least desirable cuts of the cow. I wouldn’t have cared anyway. I was a kid and, unlike my mother’s overcooked pork chops, it tasted good.

It’s been years since I’ve had cube steak, but a cut of meat that I think some people may lump together with cube steak and that I’ve really come to enjoy is flank steak.

One reason that I suspect flank steak is underrated is, well, because the cuts available at many grocery stores, or even butcher shops for that matter, are of fairly poor quality. Also, once it’s cooked past medium, even a quality piece of flank steak starts to toughen up (like those overcooked porkchops from my childhood) and lose its flavor.

This flank steak recipe is very simple to make, yet is reminiscent of a meal you could get in a good Asian restaurant. It involves just a few ingredients. But the key to its success revolves around two factors.

First, it requires a quality flank steak. We have had great success with flank steaks purchased from Whole Foods, which gets a lot of its meats from Coleman Natural. Yes, you are going to pay probably twice what you would pay for a flank steak from your usual grocery store, but the end product is well worth it. That said, some of the bigger grocery chains are now carrying their own line of hormone-free, antibiotic-free meats, and they seem to be of a decent quality—although, again, they are more expensive.

Second, the meat cannot be cooked past medium. Even medium, in my view, is a minor travesty, particularly if you’ve actually paid for a good piece of flank steak. So, if you’re one of those squeamish sorts who, for whatever reason, equates eating red or pink meat with pouring laundry detergent in your eyes, then perhaps you should skip this recipe. It’s your loss.

• 1 tablespoon of canola oil
• 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon of finely grated fresh ginger (do NOT substitute ground ginger)
• ½ cup soy sauce (low-sodium is fine, and healthier)
• 1/3 cup of dark brown sugar
• Two pinches of crushed red pepper
• 2 lbs or so of flank steak
• Salt and pepper

Get a grill going over medium-high heat

Heat the canola oil in small sauce pan over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and cook for about a minute or so, stirring a few times, until garlic is just starting to golden. Dump in the soy sauce, brown sugar, and crushed pepper, stirring here and there, and let it get syrupy, which should take 3 or 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and let it cool. Reserve about 2 tablespoons or so in a separate bowl.

Season the flank steak with salt and pepper and put on the grill (and leave it alone!). Cook for 4-5 minutes and then turn it over. Cook for another 3-4 minutes, and then brush on all of the glaze (except for the reserve) for the last minute or two of grilling.

Remove it from the grill and let it sit for a few minutes on a cutting board. Remember, it’s still going to cook for a few minutes while it sits there. So unless it's a particularly thick steak, 10 minutes is the maximum time it should be on the grill.

Slice the steak crosswise into half-inch strips and drizzle the reserve glaze over top.

Note: In terms of a side to eat with this dish, I would highly recommend making a little bit more of the glaze than the recipe calls for (just adding a little more of each ingredient to the pan), and using one tablespoon or so to quickly marinate some asparagus, which you can grill at the same time as the flank steak. We’ve done that on several occasions and it’s a perfect combination.

Alotta Frittata

This is a favorite mid-week meal in our house. Frittatas are kind of like an omelet, but you don’t flip them over. Instead, the eggs and “the stuff” all stay flat like a pizza and go under the broiler for a few minutes.

Although there are some hearty frittatas you can make, this one is light, so I’d recommend some toasted fresh bread or a side spinach salad (or both) to make it a complete meal. To save some time, you can cut up the tomato, fontina, and onion the night before.

• 6 eggs, cracked and beaten
• ¼ cup of whole milk (or, if you’re not counting calories, cream or half ‘n half)
• 1 ripe tomato, diced
• ½ to 2/3 cup of Vidalia or other sweet onion, thinly sliced (We’ve really been enjoying the PA Simply Sweet Onions, as of late)
• 3-4 ounces of fontina cheese, diced (if you can get your mitts on some good fontina, I recommend it)
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon fresh oregano
• Couple passes of freshly ground nutmeg
• Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to broil

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large frying pan (the big boy) over medium heat. Add the onions, sauté for a minute or two, then add the tomatoes and sauté for one more minute. Season the eggs with salt, pepper, and two or three dashes of nutmeg, and add to the pan.

Cover and let the mixture sit for two minutes. Uncover, tilt the pan a little to the side, lift up some set egg and let some of the runny stuff from the top go underneath. Sprinkle the oregano and the fontina over top and put into the oven. Remove from the oven once the top shows the first signs of browning, about 3 or 4 minutes.

Let it set for a minute or two. Loosen up the frittata with a rubber spatula and slide it onto a cutting board. Cut it into 4 pieces and serve.